[cumbria_lug] Software patents - am I a crackpot?

[Russ]

Hi,

I thought you might like to hear about my recent brush with democracy.

As the European elections are coming up, and I don't know who to vote
for, I e-mailed each party to ask about their views on software patents.
I was careful not to give my view, as I didn't want them to just fob me
off with a "yes, we agree with you" answer.

A candidate for the English Democrats Party replied, and we exchanged
some e-mails. She didn't seem to really have an opinion, or really know
what I was talking about, but we had what I thought was quite a useful
dialogue. Then an e-mail appeared in my inbox. It quoted my original
e-mail, and said:

<QUOTE>
Paul he has already been on tome directly on this I think he is a crack pot!

C
</QUOTE>

Obviously, this wasn't intended for me, and she'd hit Reply instead of
Forward or something.

I found it particularly interesting, since in an e-mail to me, she'd
assured me that:

<QUOTE>
As to being "politicians" well the English Democrats are in fact the
grass roots of this country rising up to take back our own law making
</QUOTE>

Guess what? The English Democrats won't be getting my vote :-) The only
other party to have replied is the Conservatives, who sent their reply
as a Word attachment (sigh). On the plus side, they seem to take   quite
a reasonable response, and the guy did at least know what I was talking
about. However, the whole thing is written in rather politicised
language, and didn't seem very clear to me (maybe I really am just a
crackpot!)

If anyone would like to see any of these e-mails, or the response from
the Conservatives, just let me know.

In other news, I have my confirmation that I will be getting a ticket to
Microsoft's "Full and frank slagging off of open source" event in
Manchester. Will anyone else be coming?

Russ